The boy is ten years old, perhaps, and rather
pretty; clean, too, and neatly dressed, very unlike all other street and
vagabond children whom I have seen in Liverpool. People give him their
halfpence more readily than to any other musicians who infest the boat.
J-----, the other day, was describing a soldier-crab to his mother, he
being much interested in natural history, and endeavoring to give as
strong an idea as possible of its warlike characteristics, and power to
harm those who molest it. Little R----- sat by, quietly listening and
sewing, and at last, lifting her head, she remarked, "I hope God did not
hurt himself, when he was making him!"
LEAMINGTON.
June 21st.--We left Rock Ferry and Liverpool on Monday the 18th by the
rail for this place; a very dim and rainy day, so that we had no pleasant
prospects of the country; neither would the scenery along the Great
Western Railway have been in any case very striking, though sunshine
would have made the abundant verdure and foliage warm and genial. But a
railway naturally finds its way through all the common places of a
country, and is certainly a most unsatisfactory mode of travelling, the
only object being to arrive. However, we had a whole carriage to
ourselves, and the children enjoyed the earlier part of the journey very
much. We skirted Shrewsbury, and I think I saw the old tower of a church
near the station, perhaps the same that struck Falstaff's "long hour.
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